No Southern Strategy: The Political Ramifications of an Alternate 1964 Election
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I think he means the Overseas Provinces. After all, there is no souch thing as an Angolan, just a black Portuguese... /s
Perhaps the Portuguese come up with a power sharing agreement with Savimbi in order to unite and defeat the MPLA
Update 50: South African general elections, 1982 and 1992
In early 1982, South African Prime Minister P. W. Botha was assassinated in a car bomb near Parliament in Cape Town. It remains unknown to this day whether Botha's assassination was as a result of the black communist-ANC linked terrorism that had gripped the nation since the mid 1970's; or whether it was as a result of hardline elements within the security services, finding the reformist (in their eyes) Botha too much to handle. After an internal coup within the National Party, the hardliners won out and handed the leadership of the party, and therefore the Premiership, to the Minister of Defence, Magnus Malan. Malan, the son of a bio-chemistry teacher, had been earmarked for high office from a young age and was subsequently shipped off to military academy. Rising quickly through the ranks, including a spell training as an officer in the United States, led to his promotion as Chief of the Army in 1973 and Chief of the Defence Force three years later. During this time, the military was transformed, becoming a far larger, more efficient and more aggressive (particularly after P.W. Botha became Prime Minister in 1978). Malan was appointed Defence Minister in 1980 and quickly set about creating secret networks with anti-communist forces across southern Africa. Malan, through diversions in funding from illegal diamond and arms trades to other regimes around the world, effectively propped up the white regime in the southern portion of the former Portuguese East Africa, as well as the anti-communist conservative RENAMO force in the rest of the country, which was locked in a civil war with the communist-inspired FRELIMO regime in the People's Republic of ('Northern') Mozambique. Elsewhere he backed the Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith and later P. K. van der Byl, until the Salisbury Agreement in 1982. After which he shifted focus on undermining the communist backed ZANU insurrection within their northern neighbour. Elsewhere, when the Portuguese withdrew from their Western African colonies (also known as the Angola Province), South African forces were quick to fill the void left by the Portuguese, quickly occupying most of territory held by the Portuguese, but still having trouble with the native insurrection in the east and north west of the country. Meanwhile in Botswana, after the death of long time President Sir Seretse Khama in 1980; the South African Government effectively bought off officials within the ruling anti-communist conservative Botswana Democratic Party, leading to the state to be compared to the Bantustans along the southern tip of the African continent.
In late April 1982 the nation went to the polls for the first time since Malan became Prime Minister earlier that year. The election saw the National Party fall to 117 seats (from the 137 they held in 1978) and down to around 51% of the vote. The liberal conservative United Party, led by Radclyffe Cadman since the party's former leader, Sir De Villiers Graaff, stood down in 1977. The decline in the National Party's votes could be accounted to the entrance of the radical-right wing Herstige Nasionale Party (Reconstitued National Party) led by former National Party MP Jaap Marais (who had won a by-election in the Innesdal constituency in 1980). The party won seven seats and took nearly 21% of the vote, most of the votes were assumed to have come directly from the National Party.
Malan set about forming a hardline Government which would aim to cut into the votes of the HNP and stop any sort of momentum the further right wing party would seem to gain. Andries Treurnicht was appointed Foreign Minister. Treurnicht, while advocating a hardline approach to Apartheid (garnering him the nickname Dr. No), was however not known for employing racialist language as other hardliners were, and was also known for his large vocabulary and rather "cultured" ways. A Treurnicht lackey, Clive Derby-Lewis, was made the Internal Security Minister: effectively handing him power over the state security services. Derby-Lewis was known for his brutish and rather extreme ways and views, he was slammed by opposition MP, and later United Party leader, Harry Schwarz as "the biggest racist in Parliament."
Malan went down hard on African nationalist and pro-communist terrorism within South Africa. Not long after the election, the deputy leader of the South African Communist Party and chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (the paramilitary wing of the ANC), Chris Hani, was found dead: having been mutilated, decapitated, emasculated and set of fire (presumed by many that it was done by the state security forces under Derby-Lewis' command). Hani was only one of the names on a list drawn up by Derby-Lewis aide and Rhodesian born journalist Arthur Kemp; other names included the likes of Communist Party leader Joe Slovo , ANC leader Nelson Mandela, among many other anti-Apartheid figures.
It was officially announced that Nelson Mandela had died of pneumonia in January 1985; however this was believed by almost no one in the anti-Apartheid movement or by many abroad. Indeed Mandela's family were reportedly told that it would "not be pretty" if they opened his coffin; suggesting he had met a more grizzly end.
After Mandela's death protests against the Malan regime popped up around the globe, with one famous march taking place in Washington, D.C., to hand a petition to then United States President, Roy Cohn. A march in London was met by police arresting leading protesters, this one was as a result of the visit of South African Foreign Minister, Andries Treurnicht, who came as a personal guest of the Prime Minister at his Chequers residence. After a series of strikes and riots inside the nation itself, Malan began to crack down upon opponents. The Government therefore re-declared a state of emergency and began a vicious crackdown on anti-apartheid activists, including leading opposition Member of Parliament and Shadow Defence Minister Harry Schwartz. Schwartz, in an interview with 'The Guardian' from his home (where he was under house arrest) said that the security service would have to be "thick [to] off [me]." They didn't.
What however drew far more attention from the likes of Washington was the brief arrest of several American embassy workers, primarily blacks or coloured individuals. In response to this breach of diplomatic courtesy, as well as the deteriorating economic and political conditions of South Africa, the United States House of Representatives passed the 1983 South African Boycott Act. It passed by a large margin in the House in April but died in conference in the Senate in July of the same year.
The big issue in the Senate was whether or not the President should be able to abrogate parts of the bill without congressional permission. Pro-boycott Republicans were for it and refused to pass the House bill as it, but pro-boycott Democrats were against the idea and refused to budge on the issue. The Republicans in favor saw it as a way President Cohn could draw the South African government to the negotiating tables, while Democrats in favor didn't trust Cohn to comply with the bill or enforce it fully, especially as he kept quiet on the bill the entire time Congress was debating it.
Eventually pro-boycott Democrats relented and allowed a small measure of Presidential abrogation into the bill. The bill was passed again in the House, April 1984, with the addendum that any and all abrogations had to be ratified by Congress within 31 days before the abrogation ended. The Senate passed it by a veto proof margin in May of 1984 as many anti-boycott Democrats (lead by future Senate Democratic leader Zorinsky, and Southern Democrats like Eagleton, Smathers, and the elder McKeithen) voted no and anti-boycott Republicans (lead by Barry Goldwater Jr.) abstained. It was a rare case where the liberals in both parties (like Bruce Babbitt and Edward Brooke) went over their own party leaderships to pass the bill.
While President Cohn was not particularly happy with the bill, after seeing the veto proof majorities he relented and allowed it to pass without his signature. He announced he was going to prosecute the bill but that the bill constrained the Presidents foreign policy powers too much for it to be constitutional. While his refusal to not sign it was controversial at the time, it didn't hurt him in the Presidential election later that year as other more pressing issues took effect, and even some pro-boycott voters agreed with Cohn's position that the bill constrained the President too much.
In 1987 Malan once again went to the polls. By this stage Malan had instituted reforms to the constitution of South Africa, making the position of State President effectively the more powerful position, and which would be elected from the largest party in the parliament. The post of Prime Minister would be appointed by the new State President and would act as the parliamentary leader and legislative mouthpiece for the State President. As a result Marais Viljoen, the incumbent State President of South Africa would be replaced by the leading party candidate. This led to some concern from the liberal wing of the National Party, who felt that Viljoen was the only thing stopping Malan from "taking the gloves off" as backbench National Party MP and former military commander (succeeded Malan to that post) Constand Viljoen stated.
The election yielded yet another victory for the National Party: they fell down to 112 seats and 48.6% of the vote. The United Party rose to 46 seats and 31.0% of the vote and the Nerstigte Nasionale Party held it's seven seats on 20.4% of the vote. Malan was subsequently appointed State President, while Treurnicht became Prime Minister. Transvaal province party leader, F.W. de Klerk was appointed Foreign Minister. Despite having a reputation as a hardline conservative, de Klerk was noted as being rather palatable.
Then the gloves came out.
In early 1987, in the KwaMakhutha township, near Durban in Natal province, forces under Malan's orders attacked the home on an ANC activist, Victor Ntuli; the attack left twenty people - including nine children dead. Later protesters, protesting the actions of that night, were shot at with live rounds in the streets by trigger happy young security recruits. It has also been alleged that the Malan Government was using political prisoners as effective guinea pigs for a series of medical tests to create a 'disease' which would make ANC force impotent. This accusation appeared to come to nothing.
Malan's Government also appeared to encourage infighting within the black community: giving monetary and militaristic aide to the right-wing Zulu nationalist conservative Inkatha Freedom Party. Malan forced through the creation of the KwaZulu Bantustan, a de jure independent state for the Zulu peoples. The seemingly cordial relations between the Malan Government and the IFP (and the new King of the Zulu nation Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu and his Prime Minister, the real leader of the Bantustan, Mangosuthu Buthelezi) led to a full blown armed war between the ANC and the Communists against the IFP. Exactly what Malan was hoping for. Fighting between IFP and ANC/Communist forces led to thousands of deaths and was decried as a "self genocide" program by newly elected United Party Leader, Harry Schwartz.
During this period South Africa developed a much needed lifeline with the 'Fourth Bloc' of the United Kingdom, France and Israel: who gave the country favorable trade deals. Alan Clark, Moshe Dayan and Jacques Chaban-Delmas extended the invite to the 1988 'Fourth Bloc' meeting held in Tel Aviv, to Malan; despite internal protests inside France and the United Kingdom.
The situation come the advent of the last decade of the 20th century seemed to get worse for the nation. The South African military was now engaging a large ANC/Communist force which was gaining numbers and support from the Soviet Union. This led to the South African Government effectively letting Lourenço Marques go it alone and instead appealing for forces from there to help their Government.
Malan himself was injured in an assassination attempt, when ANC member, Jacob Zuma, rushed up to him while he was in transit and stabbed him in the side. Zuma was later hanged for his attempt on Malan's life.
The deteriorating situation formed the backdrop of the 1992 General Election campaign where Malan was attacked from both the left and right on his record. In the end the National Party (as most people expected) was re-elected, though it won the smallest percentage of the vote it had won since 1948 (when the party in it's current form won for the first time) and the smallest number of seats since 1953. The United Party continued it's slow climb in the polls, hitting 51 seats on 33.1% of the vote. the HNP won 11 seats on 23.2% of the vote. The South African 'Sun' newspaper went so far as to predict that the HNP would form the Government at the next election, based on the results.
Malan had been re-elected once again, but his Government and regime appeared to be sitting on a metaphoric volcano, one that appeared like it might blow at any minute.
In late April 1982 the nation went to the polls for the first time since Malan became Prime Minister earlier that year. The election saw the National Party fall to 117 seats (from the 137 they held in 1978) and down to around 51% of the vote. The liberal conservative United Party, led by Radclyffe Cadman since the party's former leader, Sir De Villiers Graaff, stood down in 1977. The decline in the National Party's votes could be accounted to the entrance of the radical-right wing Herstige Nasionale Party (Reconstitued National Party) led by former National Party MP Jaap Marais (who had won a by-election in the Innesdal constituency in 1980). The party won seven seats and took nearly 21% of the vote, most of the votes were assumed to have come directly from the National Party.
Malan set about forming a hardline Government which would aim to cut into the votes of the HNP and stop any sort of momentum the further right wing party would seem to gain. Andries Treurnicht was appointed Foreign Minister. Treurnicht, while advocating a hardline approach to Apartheid (garnering him the nickname Dr. No), was however not known for employing racialist language as other hardliners were, and was also known for his large vocabulary and rather "cultured" ways. A Treurnicht lackey, Clive Derby-Lewis, was made the Internal Security Minister: effectively handing him power over the state security services. Derby-Lewis was known for his brutish and rather extreme ways and views, he was slammed by opposition MP, and later United Party leader, Harry Schwarz as "the biggest racist in Parliament."
Malan went down hard on African nationalist and pro-communist terrorism within South Africa. Not long after the election, the deputy leader of the South African Communist Party and chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe (the paramilitary wing of the ANC), Chris Hani, was found dead: having been mutilated, decapitated, emasculated and set of fire (presumed by many that it was done by the state security forces under Derby-Lewis' command). Hani was only one of the names on a list drawn up by Derby-Lewis aide and Rhodesian born journalist Arthur Kemp; other names included the likes of Communist Party leader Joe Slovo , ANC leader Nelson Mandela, among many other anti-Apartheid figures.
It was officially announced that Nelson Mandela had died of pneumonia in January 1985; however this was believed by almost no one in the anti-Apartheid movement or by many abroad. Indeed Mandela's family were reportedly told that it would "not be pretty" if they opened his coffin; suggesting he had met a more grizzly end.
After Mandela's death protests against the Malan regime popped up around the globe, with one famous march taking place in Washington, D.C., to hand a petition to then United States President, Roy Cohn. A march in London was met by police arresting leading protesters, this one was as a result of the visit of South African Foreign Minister, Andries Treurnicht, who came as a personal guest of the Prime Minister at his Chequers residence. After a series of strikes and riots inside the nation itself, Malan began to crack down upon opponents. The Government therefore re-declared a state of emergency and began a vicious crackdown on anti-apartheid activists, including leading opposition Member of Parliament and Shadow Defence Minister Harry Schwartz. Schwartz, in an interview with 'The Guardian' from his home (where he was under house arrest) said that the security service would have to be "thick [to] off [me]." They didn't.
What however drew far more attention from the likes of Washington was the brief arrest of several American embassy workers, primarily blacks or coloured individuals. In response to this breach of diplomatic courtesy, as well as the deteriorating economic and political conditions of South Africa, the United States House of Representatives passed the 1983 South African Boycott Act. It passed by a large margin in the House in April but died in conference in the Senate in July of the same year.
The big issue in the Senate was whether or not the President should be able to abrogate parts of the bill without congressional permission. Pro-boycott Republicans were for it and refused to pass the House bill as it, but pro-boycott Democrats were against the idea and refused to budge on the issue. The Republicans in favor saw it as a way President Cohn could draw the South African government to the negotiating tables, while Democrats in favor didn't trust Cohn to comply with the bill or enforce it fully, especially as he kept quiet on the bill the entire time Congress was debating it.
Eventually pro-boycott Democrats relented and allowed a small measure of Presidential abrogation into the bill. The bill was passed again in the House, April 1984, with the addendum that any and all abrogations had to be ratified by Congress within 31 days before the abrogation ended. The Senate passed it by a veto proof margin in May of 1984 as many anti-boycott Democrats (lead by future Senate Democratic leader Zorinsky, and Southern Democrats like Eagleton, Smathers, and the elder McKeithen) voted no and anti-boycott Republicans (lead by Barry Goldwater Jr.) abstained. It was a rare case where the liberals in both parties (like Bruce Babbitt and Edward Brooke) went over their own party leaderships to pass the bill.
While President Cohn was not particularly happy with the bill, after seeing the veto proof majorities he relented and allowed it to pass without his signature. He announced he was going to prosecute the bill but that the bill constrained the Presidents foreign policy powers too much for it to be constitutional. While his refusal to not sign it was controversial at the time, it didn't hurt him in the Presidential election later that year as other more pressing issues took effect, and even some pro-boycott voters agreed with Cohn's position that the bill constrained the President too much.
In 1987 Malan once again went to the polls. By this stage Malan had instituted reforms to the constitution of South Africa, making the position of State President effectively the more powerful position, and which would be elected from the largest party in the parliament. The post of Prime Minister would be appointed by the new State President and would act as the parliamentary leader and legislative mouthpiece for the State President. As a result Marais Viljoen, the incumbent State President of South Africa would be replaced by the leading party candidate. This led to some concern from the liberal wing of the National Party, who felt that Viljoen was the only thing stopping Malan from "taking the gloves off" as backbench National Party MP and former military commander (succeeded Malan to that post) Constand Viljoen stated.
The election yielded yet another victory for the National Party: they fell down to 112 seats and 48.6% of the vote. The United Party rose to 46 seats and 31.0% of the vote and the Nerstigte Nasionale Party held it's seven seats on 20.4% of the vote. Malan was subsequently appointed State President, while Treurnicht became Prime Minister. Transvaal province party leader, F.W. de Klerk was appointed Foreign Minister. Despite having a reputation as a hardline conservative, de Klerk was noted as being rather palatable.
Then the gloves came out.
In early 1987, in the KwaMakhutha township, near Durban in Natal province, forces under Malan's orders attacked the home on an ANC activist, Victor Ntuli; the attack left twenty people - including nine children dead. Later protesters, protesting the actions of that night, were shot at with live rounds in the streets by trigger happy young security recruits. It has also been alleged that the Malan Government was using political prisoners as effective guinea pigs for a series of medical tests to create a 'disease' which would make ANC force impotent. This accusation appeared to come to nothing.
Malan's Government also appeared to encourage infighting within the black community: giving monetary and militaristic aide to the right-wing Zulu nationalist conservative Inkatha Freedom Party. Malan forced through the creation of the KwaZulu Bantustan, a de jure independent state for the Zulu peoples. The seemingly cordial relations between the Malan Government and the IFP (and the new King of the Zulu nation Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu and his Prime Minister, the real leader of the Bantustan, Mangosuthu Buthelezi) led to a full blown armed war between the ANC and the Communists against the IFP. Exactly what Malan was hoping for. Fighting between IFP and ANC/Communist forces led to thousands of deaths and was decried as a "self genocide" program by newly elected United Party Leader, Harry Schwartz.
During this period South Africa developed a much needed lifeline with the 'Fourth Bloc' of the United Kingdom, France and Israel: who gave the country favorable trade deals. Alan Clark, Moshe Dayan and Jacques Chaban-Delmas extended the invite to the 1988 'Fourth Bloc' meeting held in Tel Aviv, to Malan; despite internal protests inside France and the United Kingdom.
The situation come the advent of the last decade of the 20th century seemed to get worse for the nation. The South African military was now engaging a large ANC/Communist force which was gaining numbers and support from the Soviet Union. This led to the South African Government effectively letting Lourenço Marques go it alone and instead appealing for forces from there to help their Government.
Malan himself was injured in an assassination attempt, when ANC member, Jacob Zuma, rushed up to him while he was in transit and stabbed him in the side. Zuma was later hanged for his attempt on Malan's life.
The deteriorating situation formed the backdrop of the 1992 General Election campaign where Malan was attacked from both the left and right on his record. In the end the National Party (as most people expected) was re-elected, though it won the smallest percentage of the vote it had won since 1948 (when the party in it's current form won for the first time) and the smallest number of seats since 1953. The United Party continued it's slow climb in the polls, hitting 51 seats on 33.1% of the vote. the HNP won 11 seats on 23.2% of the vote. The South African 'Sun' newspaper went so far as to predict that the HNP would form the Government at the next election, based on the results.
Malan had been re-elected once again, but his Government and regime appeared to be sitting on a metaphoric volcano, one that appeared like it might blow at any minute.
Well PM Hitchens didn't lead to civil war or genocide; or the circumvention of democracy. Only the slow painful death of Blairism...
I wanted Blairism to die too, but not like that. Never like that.Only the slow painful death of Blairism...